


bewitched

by dragonsong (NekoAisu)



Series: FFXIV Write 2019 [26]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Immortals, Little Mermaid Elements, Manipulation, Mer Emet-Selch, Mer Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), One-Sided Attraction, Other, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Prince G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch, mild body horror, spooky mers really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 22:26:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20881673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoAisu/pseuds/dragonsong
Summary: They smile, happy and oblivious, and take his hand.





	bewitched

**Author's Note:**

> For FFXIVWrite 2019!
> 
> Day 27 | Palaver
> 
> Tumblr post here: https://ffxivimagines.tumblr.com/post/187995733179/ffxivwrite-2019-prompt-27-poor-unfortunate

Emet-Selch knows himself to be a rather generous individual. He has a gift, the power to spin countries into being, and uses it to help others. He charges a price, of course. Any self-respecting witch would do the same. The lawfulness of his contracts is known, each of them fulfilled to the last letter. He is fair with his terms. An eye for better hearing, a name for the ability to shapeshift, a voice for legs. That kind of thing. 

He has seen many an unexpected customer wander into his city, but the champion of Hydaelyn? He’s positively tickled. He flicks some poor, unfortunate specter aside and dismisses them without thought. It wouldn’t do for him to welcome such a prestigious traitor with his home in such disarray.

He does not hurry to greet them, but it is a very near thing. He covers his lack of regular nonchalance with a quick summoning. “Lahabrea.”

His fellow Amaurotine slithers out from Zodiark-knows-where and grins, rows of teeth peeking out from betwixt his lips at the expression. He doesn’t mind how his scales scrape against the walls (and Emet-Selch _buffs_ those! He aims for authenticity since exile and he would suffer no immature immortals ruining it!) when he slithers forward to rest against the smooth surface of some nameless, faceless statue. “What is it?”

“They are here,” Emet-Selch replies, “and wish for a deal. Do _not_ interfere.”

“Your Pers─”

“They are not deserving of that name,” he hisses. “Begone with you and take Elidibus with you. Sentimental fools, the lot of you.” Lahabrea shrugs and swims his way down the halls, cutting out via a window with a powerful flick of his tail. For a snake, he is so very prone to fits of unadulterated affection. Even more so toward Emet-Selch’s ex-intended. 

What a pair they’ve become; an exiled architect and an ostracized sentry of the state. He only wishes he had the person who forced this upon him stuck at his side. They could suffer together through the eons while the world completes its sundered death throes. Him and his actualized lover. 

The one coming to see him, only a handful of times Rejoined, cannot compare. 

They speak to him with hesitance and confidence bundled into one and glance all too openly at his many fins and stiletto-like claws. He can see the tremor in their gossamer aether where it ebbs and surges against his own. It’s too gentle, to _intimate_ of them to let it loose in that way, but they do not seem to notice how they instinctively reach out toward him. Searching. Seeking. 

He will not allow them any of him. They are wholly undeserving of even so much as a _fraction_ of his devotion.

He draws his aether back inside and allows it to burn hot inside his core. It would not be the first time he has spat out boiling water or allowed himself to flare brilliantly. His photophores light as if in warning, a low glow lighting his face eerily when he answers their query for his assistance. “What is it you desire that Hydaelyn has not yet given you? Beauty? A lack of chronic pain? Your_ true _memories?”

“Mortality,” they respond, following after him and struggling against the current he creates. Ah, they’re so _small_ like this. A truly pitiful being. “I know you can grant it to me, Hades.”

He frowns and looks down at them, snagging a long line of octopus eggs as they pass through one of the many caves among his domain and drapes it about his neck and robes as if playing at mortal fashions. There is not a bit of care in his voice when he warns, “Now, that’s a dangerous wish. Are you so keen to squander what little favor Hydaelyn has given you that you would forsake your fate for a Spoken princeling?”

They flush from their cheeks down to their chest, even their fins flicking about in agitation at his guess. “Yes,” they confirm. “What will it cost?”

“Well, only your heart,” Emet-Selch says, “which is a small price to pay, really. I am an exceedingly reasonable man.” He snaps and unfurls the length of a shimmering, golden contract before them. “All I need is your signature right _here─”_ he instructs, tracing a line with one taloned finger “─on this contract and I can begin.”

“A heart, only?”

_“Your _heart, yes,” he clarifies. “Given willingly. You’ll have it back the moment the contract terms are completed.” He hands them the contract and they read through it. He can all but hear their brain attempting to process Amaurotine language and chooses to play the part of lawyer to break it down section by section. By the end, he’s tired and dead set on keeping them within his grasp (which is to say, within the Tempest. All those on land are far from his reach unless he is in the mood for a masquerade). It’s a shame they aren’t quite what he can trust with his beloved’s memories quite yet. Maybe one or two more Rejoinings and they would have been a passable vessel for such knowledge. In the meantime he asks, “Do you accept?”

They flounder before accepting and signing with a flash of aether from the tips of their fingers. “Three days. You’ll give me back my heart in three days.”

“As soon as the contract is fulfilled, yes,” he agrees. “Now, be grateful. I’m giving you a chance at mortality like your dearest little… what_ is _its name again?”

“G’raha.”

“Like your G’raha,” Emet-Selch continues. “I do believe you’ll find it lacking, but never let it be said that I am not, at least,_ kind.”_ He sorts through a great number of materials, tossing potables and herbs into a cauldron of sorts, and pays no mind to the worryingly acidic taint to the water that is a result. Hydaelyn’s champion simply sets their jaw and watches him brew them the curse fit to steal their heart and grant them such a handicap as true mortality. They can already bleed. What else could they wish for? Death? A want to grow old? Wrinkles are passé among that society as much as they are among Amaurotines.

He reaches toward them and they press their hands to their chest when their heart jumps. He would have it as collateral at the _least. _It’s a foolish endeavor, their want to court and live with that Allagan prince (nevermind how Emet-Selch had _allowed _his family such a thing as the schematics for that empire) but he does not break his word. He’d hold their heart until the contract is fulfilled one way or another. 

If they manage to have their love reciprocated, he will give them back their heart and watch the Allagans crumble just to bring them despair. If they fail, well… he can keep all of them. It’s a win-win situation when either outcome will have them come crawling back to him like the imitation immortal they are. 

He pulls, rending their vital aether from their chest and watching their magic short circuit at the loss. They could die without, but that is none of his concern. It wouldn’t break the terms and he would still have what he wanted. With something like their heart, he could find the remaining pieces of them and slot them all together by force. The vessel may have perished, but he is not above making them a new one (a _better _one, the one that matched him in size and prowess). 

He inhales, consuming what they’ve given, and the cauldron fizzles, aether settling down into a stable curse. “Come here, little one, and let me grant your wish.”

They do and he watches them change. What blasphemy it is to discard their semi-blessed form for something so wretched as legs and a need for air. Their fins run ragged, thin membrane melting into the waters while bones merge and shift, until the thing before him is some combination of man and immortal. 

They struggle, a hand already wrapped about their throat for need of oxygen, and he allows them a breath of it in a current to sweep them off to the nearest beach. He settles down and watches, day by day, as they struggle against the growing stagnant aether in their body, limbs leeching of all color and veins turning golden. He watches them press closely to that princeling and kiss him, believing it to be a solution to their need for love, but he simply stares at them and asks if he knows them. 

They had dragged him from the depths and imbued his soul with their own aether and he does not _know_ them? Emet-Selch laughs to himself. How frail mortal minds are to be manipulated by a lack of that same life-giving aether. Only someone like his Persephone could doom themself so thoroughly. 

He watches them transform back and rises from the waters to collect them. “Have you had enough fun, little fool?”

They quake at the reality that they’ve failed, but their heart rushing back into their body is more of a concern when it sets recognition filtering through their princeling’s eyes. He reaches for them, attempting to take them back and to give them the love he holds, but Emet-Selch simply snaps. 

They vanish from the land and the Allagan empire falls the very next turn of the century, a newborn immortal nestled among the halls of a necropolis oblivious to that which they’ve left behind. “Dearest Hades, have I been gone all that long?”

“Only a few millennia, nothing much. Elidibus has missed you.” He offers a hand when he asks, “Would you like to visit him?”

They smile, happy and oblivious, and take his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> xiv tunglr | https://ffxivimagines.tumblr.com/  
main | https://kiriami-sama.tumblr.com/  
main | https://twitter.com/flamingacekiri


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